Comment by Sounder

Toskk, one of the foremost authorities on Feral DPS, reported on 5/2 that the 4t8 bonus to Savage Roar is bugged on live. You get an 8-second increase on the duration of the Savage Roar buff, however the buff is only *effective at all* for the first 8 seconds.

A druid who's gotten 4t8 has confirmed that his kitty DPS goes way down while wearing all four pieces, and confirmed the above explanation on a test dummy.

Comment by Deadlythrow

Question for anybody able to test this (I am unable to log into the PTR and only have 2 pieces of the set on live):

Does this set bonus result in increased DPS if you are using Savage Roars of less than 5 combo points? Is it still ideal to only do 5 combo point savage roars, or does say a 2 point or 3 point roar offer more benefit in your overall rotation?

I'm not much of a number cruncher myself so I am unsure about something like this without target dummy tests. Any tests/explanations of whether this is or is not beneficial would be greatly appreciated.

Comment by grezgorz

+8 seconds of SR can be thought of as adding 2 combo points to SR or increasing it's uptime by between ~57% and ~24% (or ~40% on average). Savage Roar increases all physical damage by 30%.

+4 seconds to Rip is between +33% (on an unmodified 12 second rip) and +18% (with glyph of rip & shred & assuming you got all of your shreds in) to Rip uptime. Rip accounts for ~33% of cat damage in a raid.

Judging by this very basic (and flawed) example the t8 bonus appears to be better, especially if you are using glyphs of rip & shred. If you can adapt your rotation, you should be able to get in more FBs, or whatever else you currently aren't able to in your regular rotation. In most boss fights, the reality is that there will be times when you will have to deviate from the mathematically ideal rotation and for me, a single CP SR with a duration of 22 seconds is the perfect way to save combo points without suffering a loss of dps.

Single combo point SRs actually become ideal while wearing 4 pieces of T8 because they provide the highest up-time per combo point. That's 22 seconds per CP vs 8.4 seconds per CP if you are using only 5CP Savage Roars. This is true without the set bonus too, but the ratio becomes more pronounced with the bonus and low CP SRs become more viable as part of a realistic rotation.

This is also of interest to bear tanks. Since you will most likely be switching tanks at some point during a lot of fights, there could be an opportunity when you aren't being hit and your rage is low to shift to cat form, mangle/shred/whatever to get CP, use SR then shift back to bear form and growl. The extra 8 seconds of +30% to physical damage every time you do this can really add up.

Comment by Nafe

This is also of interest to bear tanks. Since you will most likely be switching tanks at some point during a lot of fights, there could be an opportunity when you aren't being hit and your rage is low to shift to cat form, mangle/shred/whatever to get CP, use SR then shift back to bear form and growl. The extra 8 seconds of +30% to physical damage every time you do this can really add up.

The benefit to Savage Roar really isn't any interest to bear tanks. The tactic you described is actually a waste of combo points, and a delay in rage generation.As per the 3.0.9 patch notes:

Savage Roar: The buff now persists outside of Cat Form but only provides its benefits while in Cat Form.

This is getting "clarified" in the 3.2 tooltip:

Finishing move that increases physical damage done by 30%. Only useable while in Cat Form. Lasts longer per combo point:

I haven't tested it on the PTR to see if the buff is removed when switching to Bear form, but assuming it's not, Blizzard could have worded this better. Perhaps "Finishing move that increases physical damage done in Cat Form by 30%."